 Fawr? Fawr? Fawr? Fawr? Fawr? Fawr? of alternatives to remand and existing examples of good practice. I refer members to paper 1, which is not by the Clark and paper 2, which is a private paper, and welcome Alan Staff, chief executive of APEC Scotland, Rona Hunter, chief executive of Circle Scotland, Fiona McKinnon, partnership manager Shine, Catherine Baker, chief executive of Tayside Council on alcohol, and Christine Abercomby, service manager Glasgow Women's supported bail service Turning Point Scotland. Thank you all very much for attending. I thank in particular Turning Point Scotland for providing a written submission, which the committee always finds very helpful. Can we begin our questioning? In previous evidence sessions, we have heard concerns about services aimed at supporting the use of bail or supervised bail and not being consistently available throughout Scotland. Do you share those concerns and can you suggest any action that might be taken to alleviate that? Yes. It is certainly a problem in the sector, and it is largely to do with the way that the sector is commissioned, that services tend to be commissioned on a relatively short phase, so maybe for two years or maybe three. They are very often annualised funding, so there is no security through them. Because of that, they tend to come and go. As a result, people's confidence in them tends to die of that. However good they might be, you are never really sure whether they are still going to be there next week. I think that this is a systemic problem in the way that third sector services are commissioned right the way across Scotland. Do you say annualised funding? Yes, annualised funding. Very often, you do not know from one year to the next whether you are going to have a service again next year. There is another issue in that, where it is available, it is not used an awful lot as well. In Glasgow, we have both supervised bail provided by statutory organisations as well as the supported bail. However, we certainly do not get an awful lot of referrals from supervised bail. As far as I understand, it is not used very frequently. If indeed it is used as an alternative to remand, it is more likely that it is used as an alternative to just straight bail. Do you think that that is down to lack of awareness or just consistent practice of not doing that, or that people have been stuck in their ways? It might be lack of awareness. That was one of the issues in terms of supported bail that we had to tackle early on to make sheriffs aware that there are other alternatives. That is quite a difficult task to do. The easiest route for us was to go through defence lawyers rather than straight to sheriffs themselves. It might also be that there is a difference in how it is provided to supervised bail across, even though it is patchy from local authority to local authority. What it looks like in different authorities is worth noting as well. Some have an element of support, so it looks more like the supervised bail plus that Angelini mentioned in her report, rather than just expecting somebody to turn up several times a week to check in with a social worker. I cannot comment nationally. Obviously my organisation is regional, Tayside region. We deliver mentoring services, some of which are used to support bail supervision. One of the key things is that in Dundee we have a court officer, so we have a really good relationship with the court officer and a really good relationship with our sheriffs and I think that that does build confidence in the service. I completely agree with Alan's point. We do not know from year to year what our allocation might be from local authorities. I think that we have been really lucky. We have really dedicated staff who hang in there with us, but that is certainly an issue in terms of retaining good quality experience staff and that continuity of the service. I have been involved with bail supervision both in my previous role, in the local authority, but more recently with the role I have with Shine or with Sacro. I think that one of the challenges, and I have had this on both sides of the fence, is when there is a short term funding, if the service exists, develops really well, we engage with the defence solicitors who are critical in persuading sheriffs that it is a really good idea for their service, their client to have bail supervision. We engage with sheriffs and then the funding goes. Those people lose confidence in us and so if the funding continues or if there is more funding found, then it is well. Should we really consider this again because, well, how long is it going to last? My particular interest in the last couple of years is working with women in the criminal justice system and women are extremely hard to engage with and lots of women we work with feel they have been let down time and time again. If the service exists and then disappears and then we have let them down again, so it is really, really hard sometimes to engage the women in the service because, well, it is a point. The short term funding sometimes feels as if we are fighting lots of different battles. Battles is to keep people on board when things are tough and to continue their ferro process that comes through and that is a great deal of hard work and sometimes you feel as if you are hitting your head off a bit of a brick wall when you are doing that. Thank you, Rona. I would just reiterate what my colleagues are saying here about short term funding because I think it takes an established service to build relationships. I think when you have relationships with sheriffs or with other professionals that takes time to bed in. When you have short term funding it doesn't get the opportunity to do that. I think people refer to services when they have trust in those services and that doesn't always happen with short term funding. It takes time to build that. Thank you, that's really interesting. We've got two supplementaries, Daniel and then Liam Kerr. I'm very interested in why, if there are alternatives to remand in place of why they might not be used because we know that we've got a very high level of use of remand so just touching on Cerson Abercrombie's point there that alternatives aren't always used even if they're in place. Is that particular to your area or is this something that people feel is more widespread throughout Scotland? If so, we've heard about funding. Why might there be a lack of awareness of the alternatives if that's the other reason? I just wondered if other people could reflect on that. I think that it's really important when looking at alternatives to remand that it's not just a bail, that there's a whole support package. Again, I don't have a national perspective but I think that they are certainly locally what the sheriffs and the community justice social workers use is mentoring as a way of sitting alongside perhaps a bail supervision order to provide that support and that link into the other services that might be needed perhaps to address some of the underlying issues that are around the offending. For the women and the men in fact who are engaged in that process often there's a real difficulty and they might know that they might be aware that they need to access other support services but there are real barriers there. Sometimes that's barriers around confidence and just getting to appointments. Sometimes that's about people having quite chaotic lives so a real sense from the folk that we are engaged with of wanting to meet changes but not quite having the wherewithal or the capacity to be able to get there. So a lot of what our mentors do around that kind of support package is building relationships, engaging with people, keeping track of their appointments, making sure they get to where they need to be, making sure that they remember the appointments. We're talking about people who often have lots and lots of different appointments to get to and it can be quite challenging and quite difficult to keep track of those appointments. So it's just making sure that there is a real strong package of support that sits alongside any bail that's offered. Women themselves are sometimes the people that present the women who are appearing at court. They might themselves be the barrier to accepting bail supervision and that reasons for that are very mixed. I've been in court and the sheriffs certainly have said this to me in my previous job where women are actually asking to go to prison because they feel so hopeless. They feel there's nothing for them in the community and sheriffs feel that they're left with no alternative to either sentencing women or remanding women in custody. We have a job to try and persuade the women that there are alternatives available to them and that's a big job but it's also a resource job to try and have people available to do that with the women at the time when they're in a crisis which is often when they're sitting in police custody or waiting to appear in court. It's a real challenge to persuade women at times that we can do this, we can sort out your housing, we can sort out the health issues, we can sort out your benefit issues, we can start to work alongside you to do these things that could make a difference in your life and that can be a real challenge. There is an issue about why remand is being used in the first place. There's a lot of evidence which suggests that quite a large majority is purely an administrative function rather than a legal one. It's about having confidence that the person will be back in the court when they're supposed to be and it's a nice, simple model. You put them into custody and you know that they will return. So I think that it is about confidence. I think that the sector itself has an issue there because we're talking about multiple projects and I have a big problem with lots and lots of different projects where the sentences maybe are not that confident that they know how trustworthy the individual services might be and therefore the default position, albeit a very expensive position, is to remand. I'm staying there. We're really looking at that population within remands that are likely not to turn up to court for their trial and how we deal with them. At the minute it seems we're using remands, we're using it overly, but we're also using it as a full, safe means that they're going to turn up to court but there are many other ways that we can help people to turn up to court and that's about maybe being more creative in our approach rather than using it straight to remand. That's something that our service does. Even your GP or dental surgery will give you a text message before your appointment, so it's very simple things like that. You can start from there. Giving everyone a taxi to get to court is going to be a hell of a lot cheaper than sending everyone to remand. We are talking about people that have got multiple and complex needs so it's realistic to think that they might struggle to get to court but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't help them to get to court. We use a proactive, assertive outreach model that encourages the women that we work with to engage with us in the community and in an environment in which they are comfortable and that in itself will build trust and we can look from there not only to get them to the court date but to deal with those underlying issues that brought them to court in the first place. If I could follow up on those last two points. The lack of trust there, is that fundamentally about a lack of understanding from sheriffs about how those services work? If so, what can be done about that? To Kirsten, could I just ask if you are aware of any work to be done at looking at alternatives to making sure that people do show up, like giving them a phone call saying, is there any work going on like that? I could go to Alan first to that first point. Yes. Lack of trust, yes. More commonly, lack of knowledge about which particular project happens to be around at the current time. If things keep changing, then quite honestly the sentence has to keep in touch with everything that's going on all the time. It's not that easy. It's not just a matter of trust, it's a matter of consistency. Fiona Rona, do you want to say something? A couple of points to pick up on what you were saying as well there in a previous job and understand that it's still happening. I don't know if committee are aware of this and forgive me if you are aware of it, but when a person appears in court and they are to return to court, they are not given, they're just told the date, so they're not given a letter or there's no any further reminder unless their defence minister reminds them. So often, as you know, when women appear in court or people appear in court, their lives can be really chaotic, they're really anxious and to actually hear and memorise, right, okay, I'm due back in court on the 10th of January. I need to remember that. It's a real challenge for a lot of people. So often it's not a conscious choice not to appear in court. Don't remember. So what was set up, and this was a commandant share of court, was the staff there were texting the women. Remember you've got court tomorrow, any problems turning up, let me know. And that was having a real, at the time when I was involved, a real success rate in getting people to turn up at court. And it was a simple measure. And I think the other thing I wanted to say, and this is in terms of shine, that where we can, where we're actually working with a woman and she's due to appear at court, then the mentor where possible will be at court when that woman's appearing. Now the sheriffs really appreciate that, to know that there is an individual, there that's working with a woman that's appearing in front of them. Because that means one thing to the sheriff that that woman's engaged in a service. So that in itself can be real assistance to help the sheriff to make a decision that allows that woman to remain in the community. But that again is a resource issue in terms of always being able to do that. So in shine we can only do it most of the time when we're actually engaged with that woman, not for people that we don't know about. But where we know the women, then we'd always make that as a priority to be in court when that woman appears to help the sheriff, to make sure that the sheriff knows where they are and to help the sheriff make a decision that hopefully allows the woman to remain in the community and continue working with shine as well as any others. Fiona? I just wanted to talk with the broader issue about imprisoning parents because I think there's a huge issue here in respect to the children and the impact on the children. We're aware of adverse childhood experiences and children who have four or more adverse childhood experiences are likely to have poorer outcomes in terms of their general outcomes but definitely within their health and wellbeing. One of those adverse childhood experiences is parental imprisonment. For me, in terms of the bigger picture in terms of looking after our children and our society, I think that we need to really start thinking about what we do with people who are parents and actually is remand the answer for them. I would question that. Can I ask perhaps if child impact assessments are being presented when that decision is made? That was very much what was behind the child impact settings being legislation being passed. Can I just come in there in terms of the services and the women that we are involved with? A lot of the women don't have the children currently residing with them. We have a number of families where the children are with kinship carers. However, a really important part of the work that we are involved with is I suppose it's about thinking systemically, thinking about family systems, thinking about families living in communities and just thinking a bit more out the box about how those different systems have interplay with each other and have a relationship with each other. Some of the work that we are involved in with the women who we are supporting on either community-based disposals or bail supervision is about re-engaging building bridges with families and building bridges with their children. That's really, really important and we can't do that if the women are then remanded or given custodial sentences. Those relationships are broken. Sometimes the children are less visible because they're either with foster care or quite commonly within the family or extended family and a kinship care arrangement. If a child impact assessment was presented it may not cover that particular scenario where they're in kinship care or someone else's foster care but there are connections and they're trying to establish a relationship that might not be taken into account. That might not be taken into account. It's not in terms of the actual child impact assessments I probably couldn't comment categorically but for the children who absolutely as a child you have a need to know your family of origin and where you come from and what your story is and for the women to be able to retain that connection with their children whether the children are going to go back to live with them permanently it's crucially important to the future of those children and to the extended family. I think the likelihood is if there was a child impact statement provided it would be after the person had been in remand, not before because it would be when the criminal justice social worker was doing their report and assessment. Okay, thank you for that. Next question, John. I'm very interested to know whether the criminal justice Scotland coming into being has in any way impacted at all, please. Can I stop you there and I've kind of jumped the government a little bit. We had two supplementaries from the last one which would probably be worth carrying. It was Mari and Liam Kerr so my apologies, I didn't notice them yet. Thank you, convener. It was really just the point that you touched on about ACEs. There's quite a few members around this table. There's a new cross-party group established on ACEs and the justice element is really important to feed into that because we all have a very big interest in that. My following question to that would be the points that you've raised about the wider impact on the families. That's what we've heard from previous evidence sessions as well. It's just about young people in particular and young people that are placed on remand and put in that prison environment and the impact that that has on their lives too. I was wondering if any of you had an idea of the scale or the numbers of young people that we have on remand because I think that is really concerning and again the wider impact and the impact that that can have on their life when they may not go on to receive a custodial sentence or indeed be convicted. Anyone got that information? No. I don't know the numbers. I just know there's been a massive reduction in the number of young people that have both been remanded as well as been sentenced. It's a really big success story working with young people in the criminal justice system that are being in the main kept away from the services of Scottish Prison Service and there's a massive amount of work that has been done within the community. There's also a lot of resources that have gone along with that to allow them to do that bit of work but there's so many lessons to learn from the work that's been done around young people in the justice system that some of that can transfer over to the work with adults within the justice system as well Alan? Yes, just to back that up. Absolutely success story. We were very, very concerned that a general reporting from young people in Pullman was that admission to Pullman was actually a rite of passage and was something to put on your CV as it were. Anything that could be done to keep young people out of the justice system at least out of the prison system and that's to be a good thing. So yes, it's been a success. Just in the work that we do with young men and that this is young men age 16 to 21 is the kind of high level of bereavement that they've experienced in their lives and I think again talking about systemic approaches what we've seen as a whole systems approach within youth justice and I think there's an awful lot that we can learn from that whole systems approach. Liam Kerr? Thank you convener, just very briefly I'll direct this to Alan Staff although you all feel free to answer if you wish is there any evidence that bail is being refused because of a lack of availability of your services or the short term funding that you touched on earlier or because the judge decides that it is either not suitable for the individual or the service isn't suitable? It would be very easy to actually, very difficult to actually mean that in evidence form most of what you have to work with tends to be anecdotal or it's reporting from the service themselves what they're saying because the availability of services and the variation in services is so great across Scotland that situation will vary enormously from place to place there is a huge postcode lottery in Scotland in terms of what you can and can't get and what might and might not be available to you and you couple that with the variances of the sheriffs themselves and the systems themselves at local level and it becomes very difficult so my short answer is that I'm not aware of what the evidence is if there is an area with perhaps many alternative services, many alternatives to bail refusal are there significantly fewer numbers of people held on remand in those areas? Yes I apologize John, would you mind asking your question again? I was asking about community justice Scotland and any changes that had been following the advent of that organisation I think that it's too early I think that what the chief executive has brought is such a strong message of hope for the future in terms of listening to her speak and the ideas and things that she would want to take forward but I think that it's too early to actually see if there's any significant changes going to come along with community justice Scotland I think that part of the issue is that there's not as many teeth as there were so they can make recommendations about what they would like to see but don't actually have the legislative powers to ensure that that happens and I think that so that's going to take time and I think that's just what Fiona was saying I think that it's going to take time to bed in I think as well as not having teeth they also don't have a budget to commission services which might be an issue as well going forward but I would agree with what Fiona said of the community justice Scotland at this stage I think a way I wonder if I could ask any other changes on particularly if it's too early with community justice Scotland what about its predecessor the criminal justice authorities was there a significant change when they went out of existence then? I would say in terms of third sector participation there's been a reduction in our involvement certainly in those structures across the local authorities the legislation there's only a suggestion that they should include third sector within their sort of decision making and their strategic plans which most do to some extent but again we're the sort of distant cousin and the kind of influence that we had previously we don't think exist to the same extent anymore and again that might be because it's still in its infancy but we certainly hope that going forward we would have the same kind of capacity as we used to it's been quite difficult because there's an underlying tension between strategy and the localism agenda and somehow CJS kind of sits in the middle of that rather difficult position the CGAA is certainly used to be have exactly the same issue that they didn't feel that they had the teeth to implement the strategies they could advise but effectively the finances that underpin those strategies still went through the same process so the vast amount of the money still goes through the local authority filter so we kind of changed the decorations a little bit but there are some systemic things which would have to change to make this work to make strategy work which we still haven't addressed and I know that Karen would be the first to agree that that is a huge frustration Given that local authorities budgets were top sliced to facilitate the money that previous criminal justice authorities have perhaps all the local authorities are doing all their criminal justice work in house now to... Is that the case? To the detriment of the third sector Can I come in? I suspect there's variation across Scotland I think maybe we're fortunate in Tayside we certainly have a seat at the community justice planning table I think there's a good third sector representation in each of the three local authority areas of an on-going relationship and I think that's the key for me it's about that trusting relationship that we've developed with our statutory partners in terms of what we do and what we can bring to the table not just what we can bring to the table in terms of our thoughts and ideas and service delivery but also what we can bring to the table as third sector in attracting in external funding from some of the discretionary funders to enhance what we do if you like the cherry on the top working towards long-term sustainable changes for the people in our communities Ok, thank you very much Ben Thank you very good morning Rona Hunter based on them the third sector making a difference as you know I'm aware of because we hosted an event together here in the Scottish Parliament of Circles women's outreach team project addiction support and counselling I just wondered if you wanted to touch on that as a project on an anecdotal basis I appreciate it has made a difference and also the support that it collaborated with in terms of community justice The outreach team is actually funded and I was going to say a wee bit about that we have two services around community justice but we have three services one is through the Shine PSP and two other services there are trust and foundations that are not funded through any local authority funding and our women's outreach team is actually funded by Big Lottery and it's a three-year funded project that we have in Lanarkshire and it's for women as an alternative to imprisonment it's not actually an alternative to remand it's actually an alternative to imprisonment and women need to be either have electronic monitoring or a community payback order in conjunction with our services so we work with the whole family so we work with the whole family so we work with the children we work with partners extended family if we need to and we're also in partnership with ASC which is a counselling service so we're able to offer the women counselling as well as that we had our parliamentary reception at the end of November last year and at that point we'd worked with 38 women and none of those 38 women had returned to prison and it was because we very much take a solution-focused approach which is, you know, we put the women at the centre we take a strength-based approach which is building on the strengths rather than focusing on what's not working well and it's very much about relationship building with those women because I think we hear a lot from the women that we've worked with where they don't feel they're listened to and I think that's actually crucial to the work that we do is that we listen to what the women want but not only that, we do take account of the broader parts of their life so we had a parent at that event who was talking about the fact that her partner had an alcohol issue and because we were working with the whole family we were able to get him support for his alcohol issue as well as working to support her and the children so it's taking that broad approach really we find it's really effective that the project is for an alternative prisonment but it could be easily rolled out to incorporate remand or diversion from prosecution Yes, that's very helpful and I know from previous years then people of youth circle have said you know, maybe I've messed up somewhere they're still there before if you've messed up then that's it, you're in trouble and people walk away and it's that continued support and results which brings me to given that this is working so well you've got 38 women who have been supported and haven't been in trouble again then do you collect any data on the current level of youth of support services supporting bail this is a continual thread going through the committee either lack of data and being able to analyse and what isn't so could you perhaps tell the committee if you do collect this data and how it compares to current use to maybe previous years use Fiona Can I just clarify you're not talking specifically about women in bail Well it was to support services supporting the use of bail and how this compares with previous years but if you can expand that and talk about any other data I think we'd be very interested to know that that existed All women who shine work with and some, there might be a small number in bail, majority of women who are working with shine have served a short term prison sentence on a community payback order or have been in remand, are in remand and are supported when they come out of prison a needs assessment tool called Outcome Star and Outcome Star looks at a number of measurements that are important in people's lives, all their lives not just the women we work with so it's things like accommodation in your relationships with others about your health, about your finances and the woman sits with the mentor and plots where she would see herself in the star around our housing needs and it's very much a joint tool and then every 68 weeks they will re-look at that again and it offers the women a visual opportunity to see where things are improving or where things are where she's struggling a bit and what areas are important to concentrate on now that measurement allows shine the opportunity globally to look and see where they are working well in some areas and where the bigger challenges are so we collect it globally and it's individually for the women and the mentor that's working with her and that's its primary focus How does it work? I wish I'd brought it with me It looks like a star with nine points on it and the points are graded 0 to 5 or 0 to 10 and so the women and her mentor the mentor and the mentor sit and say well here's a description of where if we're looking at housing it offers that description well if you were between 1 and 3 potentially that's your homeless but if you're way up at 10 you've got a permanent house you've got a permanent accommodation and it looks like the star so that visually represents where the women would see herself in agreement with the mentor around what the issues that she is presenting the issues that she says she has and then they look to see okay what ones are we going to work on necessarily the hardest ones we might start with ones that are a bit easier and a bit more achievable initially to build up that confidence but it's a very visual tool that goes along with the women can have a copy of it if she wants but it's a really visual tool and we're happy to provide further information to committee if that would be helpful but it's something that the mentors themselves really feel is a much better tool to sit and work alongside the women it's not that we're going and doing things for people it's about being alongside somebody and that individual supporting that individual to do what the individual feels are the areas that they want to work on so it's really walking that path with them but happy to share that obviously to committee okay thank you Kirsten turning point Scotland uses a similar tool to the justice star we use the recovery outcomes web which is a Scottish government tool for justice addiction services homelessness services and criminal justice services and again it's a visual tool that has 10 points and we measure short, medium and long term outcomes that the women achieve through engaging with our service I think from being co-located within criminal justice social work offices our services have sort of learned that in many respects the third sector is ahead of the curve in terms of recording outcomes and being able to produce evidence compared to some of the statutory organisations we work alongside so I would say that these are really useful and we have a quarterly report for our turnaround service in Paisley, our residential service it's 150 pages long worth of evidence and data so yeah we gather an awful lot of it and is it passed on? yes we return it to our funders to commissioners and to the Scottish government as well and is it graded what's working well further into the analysis? yes and we look at feedback as well from the people that we work with in terms of attribution you know where has the change come from is it because of our input is it because of their own motivation or family supports or social work input those kind of things as well as all our partner organisations we'll look for feedback from them as well okay and Catherine so we've just come to the end of the first year of supporting women on bail with our mentoring service the mentoring service really grew out of the reducing the offending agenda and up to now was funded through the Scottish government moneys we developed our outcome template in partnership with the Robertson Trust and the Scottish government to measure outcomes unfortunately because we've just got to the end of our first year I've no idea what I've not got a year to compare it with but that's the first step isn't it to be engaging with your customer with the individual we have a DNA rate of only 9% for the women that we've worked with on bail supervision so our engagement levels are actually really high we're seeing really good outcomes in a number of fields so preparing people to change to kind of take a step in the right direction having a belief in your ability to do this because I think a lot of people have had lots of negative experiences which has reinforced a sense that they're useless, they're no good there's no point in trying because they're just a waste of space and indeed for some individuals from a very young age that's what they've been told they've been told that through nursery, primary school, secondary school developing that belief in themselves and their ability to change, an ability to create a different life for them is really important so we measure that using similar tools key to the work that we do is identifying what the needs and quite a holistic sense of that individual and their wider family network and making sure that they can engage with services we'll say do you want to phone up to make an appointment here's the phone number, is that too hard for you that's okay, we'll phone up and make that appointment do you think you can get there by yourself on the bus sometimes that's a really it's a really simple bus journey but people don't have the bus fare or they don't have the confidence to get on the bus or they've been down to that service before and because they have a label as an offender or a drug user they've not had a positive experience when you talk to our mentors going into some organisations the GP surgeries benefits agencies they talk about their being a real difference and they'll kind of go in with their mentee initially often the GP or the benefits avoiders doesn't realise that they're not just a friend and as soon as they say well actually I'm this person's mentor I mean our staff will talk about a switch a difference in attitude a different way of treating the client at the centre so we collect information about all of that I do have a report it's quite a brief report and it has been sent to the Scottish Government but be happy to provide that if that would be useful for you Alan then Fiona just going back to this whole data collection thing the sector as has already been said is actually pretty far ahead of the curve on how we do this I think what we've learned is the value of the so-called soft outcome and that is to say that there are stages in development when you're working with an individual which cannot be measured necessarily by what the person has done you start to think about measuring who the person think they are so what is their attitude what are their aspirations what do they believe they can do what do they believe they can achieve those are actually the more important stages the more important milestones in working the other things can be added on a lot of things like training skills training it gets people into jobs it provides work related environments all of these things are good and they're practical but none of them make a difference unless you begin to change how a person thinks about themselves and actually we do record that and we can record that we can demonstrate it I think the whole sector does it well we've really got under the skin of what this is all about which is changing a person and changing their potential not about achieving solid definite milestones about how they are offended those are markers the indicators but they're not why we're doing the job evaluation of self worth actually how that's gone up Fiona, sorry Rona and then I'll bring in Liam McArthur verse supplementary I just wanted to mention we were talking about the women's outreach team that Circle has we actually have commissioned an external evaluation of that service which will be completed this summer and that's both a qualitative evaluation and an economic evaluation the immediate kind of feedback we're getting is A, the service works and B, it's cheaper so I just wanted to let you know that and we're certainly happy to pass that on and I suppose it's an example of preventative spend which we're always looking for and here you have it Liam I wanted to focus on that because I think earlier on in the evidence you were talking quite a lot, I think all of you about the anecdotal evidence that they built up in terms of supporting a steer away for a remand wherever possible but I think in the responses you've all given you've pointed to a body of fairly firm tangible evidence in terms of outcomes so I was just wondering whether the concerns you have around the short term nature of the funding is linked to a focus by either local authorities Scottish Government, wherever it may be on the wrong kind of indicators or outcomes not valuing what Mr Stafford just talked about in terms of the journey, the attitudinal shift, the sense of self-awareness it's absolutely fundamental to embedding any change and what's being looked at is whether or not there's any re-offending in which case surely that suggests that the interventions haven't worked I'm just trying to understand whether or not it's a lack of acknowledging the idea of evidence that there is that's led to that short term funding whether it's just a financial environment where we're in and it's kind of everybody's operating hand to mouth because it seems to me that all of you are able to point in the jargon kind of KPIs that are pretty impressive that reinforce the message we've had from witnesses throughout our inquiry here about the benefits of that kind of support being available Anyone would like to address that, Catherine? I think that the short term funding is an issue in terms of some of the outcomes or outputs we're expected to achieve we're generally working with the people who need that support package the people who can't just get on with it and manage either under their own steam or under the support of their extended family network are women who've had disruptive childhoods who have historic or current trauma who have substance use issues who have mental health issues who have poor adult relationships with their family with their parents, with their partners there's often domestic violence or coercive control is a feature in there they have housing issues they experience stigma I think that sometimes in terms of their developmental journey it feels as though the trauma and the substance use and the mental health issues have impacted on that and they're a little bit stuck in adolescence at times in terms of being able to fully appreciate the consequences of their actions and make the links they have poor self-esteem a poor belief in their ability to change we've kind of talked about some of this the men the young men that we work with one of a real kind of key feature is the lack of aspiration so the sort of belief that well they're not going to get a job they're just going to be signing on like perhaps their family are or I think Rona had said a right of passage they're going to end up in pole month so there's a sense of inevitability about their journey and I think when you have that if that's where you've come from you're not going to stop offending get a job and turn your life around in six months or a year that's a long term journey you've already suggested that the partnership arrangements you have across the three local authority areas is very strong you appear from what you've said to be on the right side if there's a postcode lottery to this that lottery and there's a recognition of the fact that you're dealing with individuals that present with a whole series of multiplicity of challenging conditions and yet, and there must be a recognition that in addressing those it's going to take longer than a year or two years but you're still you're still concerned about that short term approach to funding so I'm wondering why it is that there's not a recognition even in that relationship that you've described that seems to be fairly positive in what you'd want to see across the country there's still a lack of a recognition that you need that longer term horizon and confidence and support why is that? that's not because people don't accept that the outcomes that you're achieving the progress that you're making with the individuals is positive I think locally we've got that relationship and that understanding but I'm not sure that that's there nationally across the country and I think that then has an impact into the local level, is it? I think certainly it's not that there's a lack of evidence of the outcomes or even an acknowledgement that positive outcomes are being achieved I think it purely comes down to financial decisions and financial priorities and we're still working, like we said, year to year but the reality of that is that we're coming up at the end of financial year at the end of this week and that service doesn't know if we're going to be starting again on Monday so it's left to the very last minute as well so in terms of planning it's extremely difficult to look at the support and the service delivery on a long-term basis and we know from evidence that a mentoring relationship takes somewhere in the region of about 18 months to achieve successful outcomes especially when we're working with women that are so entrenched in historic trauma and difficult behaviours that we're trying to address with them Just from what my colleague was saying here I think that it comes down to finance I think that we can present our evidence to our local authority statutory partners and say that's fantastic, you're doing a great job but actually how do we find the money to commission a service like that because we only have so much in the port and I think that what they are doing is bringing things in-house and I think that it's very difficult for them to take money from services that they're providing to give to the third sector is my experience Annala, yes? It's very easy to put the finger at local authorities I think that the bigger picture is that there is a problem in terms of strategic commissioning or rather non-existent strategic commissioning commissioning is done on the basis that the public sector has to be maintained first and foremost and there is no obvious strategy for what the third sector brings the third sector kind of exists outside of a strategic framework to fill in the gaps that's how it appears to take place because in the sense that somebody who represents Orkney for example I am not going to I think make a case for saying that the range of services that are available perhaps in Glasgow or Tayside or wherever should be available within Orkney but I would hope that there is enough of a range to provide the opportunity so is that strategic commissioning at a local authority level first and foremost? I think it's very much about knowing what it is that should be provided not how it should be provided that's probably it's a local decision but there is a case that everyone should at least have a sort of broad set of best practice guidance that they should be providing and part of that is that there should be an active third sector provision because what the third sector provides is something different it is an alternative to what the public sector can provide it's not the same there will be overlaps but as far as the user viewpoint and their acceptability and what they can gain the third sector brings something that the public sector cannot it's different and you need that difference and if you just think well we'll just go down a sort of fairly blinkered idea that we will provide the service and that's it and that's all you've got then I think we're missing out on the potential the other thing I think we're missing out on is this acknowledgement that the third sector provides probably about a third in terms of financial all justice services certainly all community justice services in Scotland and you can't just have that operating outside of the system as a sort of fallback we'll just use it as and when we feel like it I think there has to be a clear vision for how you use to utilise the resource that the third sector represents in Scotland thank you Maurice panel what does the supervised bail entail and evolve in practice and what are the main benefits of it to either any of you there is guidance for supervised bail that was set out with the Scottish Government some time ago but it is only guidance and what the guidance would suggest is that there should be three contacts with that individual person who's on supervised bail per week and at least one of them should be in that individual's home obviously to check that that's where they live that's guidance the rest of it's relay down to the individual service deliverer around what that's going to look like and that will differ across the country depending on what resources are and certainly when SACRO delivered bail supervision previously there was built into that some support for the individual primarily it had to be something that was seen as very robust because the sheriffs needed to trust that if they imposed supervised bail that the person delivered that service to the person that appeared in court would be monitored and monitored very strictly so that was a critical part of it and that's what we had to persuade the sheriffs that was being delivered but if the person's turning up and they're homeless and they're ready to begin to address then the service provider would ensure that they were linked into those services and to the best of their ability attending those services because critically what then the service provided was a report to the sheriff to say that this person did X, Y and Z really well and engaged really well and then that helped the sheriff to decide it on a disposal for that individual so there's always that carrot and equally there was a stick there hanging over if you don't engage things are going to be really bad for you when you go back to court but it's very much a lottery around what the service is going to look like because the guidance is there as a guidance only I picked you up on a point there you talked about local authorities and support is it again a bit like a postcode luxury that some local authorities are giving that support to you it's therefore better in some places than not others Is that a general feeling of the panel? Yes Pick up on that I would be way to some extent of seeing also provision as a panacea in terms of reducing the remand population certainly because of that variation across the country and if we're looking at the population that we don't expect to turn up for one court appointment to expect them to turn up for three appointments in one week is very unrealistic so when dealing with that level of chaos and uncertainty within somebody's life I really think that the support element is crucial and that's when the third sector and the statutory sector can work very well together because you've got the carrot and the stick and in the third sector we sit in a very unique position in that we don't have any power over anyone we can't return their order to court with our service we work on a voluntary basis so we can develop a much more therapeutic helping relationship that goes alongside obviously the business and social worker so they work well when they're working in partnership Chaotic lifestyle is a real problem when it comes to owners for the people who are like that and therefore it's not one size fits all basically any other comments on that? Thank you for your name Yes, George Good morning I just wanted to follow on from that as well in the fact that the third sector of all these projects that we have all over the country that you mentioned earlier on and that's a classic example of the third sector effectively you know they're not part of the statutory role they're not seen as the bad guys they're seen as trying to help and is that not a case in that project in particular there's a lot of young men that I met there who effectively could have ended up in remand constantly in that cycle all the time and is that not what the third sector's actually given the whole process? Absolutely, it just gives another tool or a disposal that we can look at not just remand but bale supervision, bale support electronic monitoring but with the turning point service that you mentioned turn around as an alternative to custody or for men that are on community orders as well they've got drug and alcohol issues and it gives them the option of a residential stay where they can address their underlying drug and alcohol issues for six weeks and at the end of that they can return to the community if obviously they fail to comply and carry out the rest of their stay then that can be returned to court for reconsideration but the same is true for women in Glasgow we've got the 218 service that can be used in a similar sort of way instead of sending people to prison or on remand we can look at addressing the underlying causes of their offending behaviour On success of these programmes you know that the non-reoffending I'm led to believe the one in Paisland in particular is quite good I know that one myself I don't know whether the one in Glasgow will try and I think that again comes from that sort of partnership working we've got social care staff but we work alongside medical staff visiting medical officers nursing staff and a whole host of other wider issues are dealt with rather than just the offending Is that not an example if you bring what Alan said earlier on of actually being more strategic in that way as opposed to being part of the solution and not seen as just something to come in at the last minute to deliver it cheaper and something that the local authorities or public sector can't do Yes, it is an example it's a sadly all too rare example It's been suggested that supervised bail doesn't lead automatically to a reduction in remand because bail would probably be granted anyway and notwithstanding everything you've said about support which I entirely agree with what are your views on that Do you think that it does lead to a reduction in remand in the long term? I think that if it's appropriately targeted it can do When SACRO set up Bail Supervision Service in Nostrath Clyde the sheriffs was taken up very very quickly by the sheriffs in Nostrath Clyde and in Paisley and for Clyde particularly Paisley and it was the sheriffs were very clear that they were only referring women or making that decision in court where they were considering remand for these women so that was quit within six months we were up to the contractual numbers that were agreed and now set for the whole year so it was picked up very quickly now that was we were able to measure that on the basis of unfortunately it didn't last long because as we say it disappeared for that and this was a service that was taken up very quickly that was delivered very promptly and a very close working relationship with criminal justice social work with the third sector and that does make a fantastic difference where there is that mutual support and mutual trust to work together with the sheriffs on board because we might be the sheriffs and they were on board as well as defence solicitors and the take-up on it was very very quick and I suppose that's all we can go by where the sheriffs were clearly saying these are the women that we are considering for remand you do a bail supervision assessment and then they made the decision whether or not they would take it up and I think in all but one case they did take up our recommendation and it worked really really well for the short time that the service was funded and then we lose confidence again because the service has gone to think slip back once that certainty has gone that's a potential on board it's about you then have to build up your credibility by following this going to last and it's just it's really really challenging particularly with projects that have been very successful and we're able to show in evidence that level of success anecdotally that would be our experience in Dundee although we've only been targeting bail over the last year yeah okay anyone else no thank you yes there's been an example in Edinburgh where there's been a lack of bail accommodation for people and the possibility of people being refused bail because they haven't got accommodation do you know that systemic situation throughout Scotland somebody like to pick that up I think as far as I'm aware that it's not something that really exists anymore it's the old sort of bail beds that we used to have are sort of taken up by people being released maybe on long-term licenses post-sentence but one of the things we do to get around that is we work in partnership with the white people who offer temporary furnished accommodation within the city but also tenancy sustainment support so we are able to address issues if somebody is homeless and fast accessing accommodation for them or indeed supporting them through the homeless system in order to accommodate them but as far as bail beds go I don't think they exist anymore Was it Sakura that used to do they used to, if I remember right, they'd involved with something on that, was that right? Yes, way back. Is there longer than the case? How we might be resolved that? I've experienced times in court where the sheriff has sent the worker around to housing office because he really wants to grant a person bail and has been unable to do so I've experienced when they've used the solicitor's office to be able to grant bail which is a real challenge and I think questionable in terms of what will happen to the women so it's... I'm talking when I worked in Ayrshire Ayrshire was a lot better off than you would have in the city but there was still challenges around there and hours and hours and hours that could be spent in the housing office until a person was provided with accommodation so it continues to be an issue but I do think there is I think there is improvements there I think the work that's happening at national level with committees that are more focused together around what the issues are I think no housing support I think there are there's a recognition it's an issue and there's an opportunity to make improvements here I think any varies around the country There is quite a lot of concern as to whether the concept of the old bail hostel as it were, grouping people together in that kind of unstable scenario is a good thing there's a lot of evidence that supporting people in their accommodation separate if you like and focusing on their own needs is a rather better model than forcing people together in the way that those old systems used to work Catherine Catherine just before sorry Maurice Can I ask you a side question Are you aware of any veterans who are in this position on force veterans is it a significant percentage interesting Slightly controversially the thing is what constitutes a veteran many of the forces charities only consider a veteran to be somebody who has completed their term and has then accessed the support services that are available to them they are extensive however if you have been dishonorably discharged or just decided that one tour was quite enough and gone then you distance yourself from the situation there's a lot of young men particularly young men going through the justice systems going through a range of support services that we're offering who deliberately have hidden their forces background because they felt discriminated against if they had come out of if they've been dishonorably discharged or otherwise so yes it's a huge problem but a lot of services working in a funny way I'd say there are almost too many different services working on that but the bigger problem is the identification and the establishing of the sort of numbers that we're talking about as I say they do hide in the system and many of the systems that are set up to keep track of them aren't actually reading them thank you very much very interesting indeed electronic monitoring as an alternative to remand is not currently available should it be and in what circumstances yes what circumstances as long as support is alongside that it can't work in its own many years ago in the airshire electronic monitoring was piloted and sacro at that point sacro was involved in the pilot and criminal justice social work and sacro felt it was very successful pilot and it wasn't continued and it was deemed to be expensive whether or not how you compare expensive I'm not sure so we at that point a number of years ago felt it was a very positive model to electronic monitor people but to provide that support and that's critical if that support isn't there then I fear what will happen to people and it will catapult people into the prison services that's my personal view just before I move on you say it was expensive or it's felt to be expensive the obvious question then is do you have any oversight of what the cost of that was as against the cost of putting someone in prison on remand far cheaper to be on electronic monitoring plus support services it depends how you it depends how you want to cost something it depends what you want that outcome to be right it was a fair answer Alan Staff yes I would say in not in every case by any means there is a need for a little bit more security a little bit more confidence then electronic monitoring can be really helpful as has already been said it is not particularly helpful on its own the opportunity that it affords if it's keeping people out of the remand setting is that it allows you to do the work it allows that period of time up to the sentencing to be constructive as opposed to the current situation which is not only expensive but it's destructive to the individual it's a time out of their life and actually when you start disrupting people's lives like that it's very very difficult for them to get to get back on track the jobs can go tendencies can go all sorts of things during that time when you've pulled them out of their world and we would say and I'm sure on the table it's better to be working with people in that and if monitoring allows them to be safely managed within that situation then it's got to be a better option Rona Hunter I was talking earlier about that our women's outreach team that we have part of that is that the women have to be sentenced to either an electronic monitoring or a community payback order so some of the women that we work with are on electronic monitoring and it's very successful because alongside that there is a good package of support in terms of outreach, intensive outreach counselling, family support and so the women really and as I say up to end of November last year 38 of those women had not gone back to prison and that for me is a sign of success Catherine Baker I agree with what my colleagues have said we're currently looking at a support package with electronic monitoring for people on a restriction of liberty order in Dundee but there's no reason why that can't be also used for bail and I would see that as the next logical step I agree with the comments that Alan has made, I think electronic monitoring is not necessarily understood in terms of the flexibility that can be there without having to bring the matter back to court so some variations we don't want to be preventing people from starting jobs or doing evening classes or doing whatever it is that might be beneficial to enhance their support package so I think just understanding that it can be a flexible resource as well Let me flip the situation thank you for those answers let me flip the situation slightly we heard from a defence lawyer who gave an example of a particular client who had been granted bail multiple times but just kept re-offending so one of the things that the evidence said was she is not a danger to the public but her behaviour can be a real nuisance and a disruption for the public so do you have a view where that situation rises on what should be being done in those cases both in relation to bail applications and in general Fiona McKinnon I think one of the important things about electronic monitoring is that there is an assessment benefit individual prior to them being subject to electronic monitoring I think it would be really helpful to the sheriff to provide that information which would include around the flexibility but also the suitability because we don't want to be culpable of supporting people to be their journey into prison being quicker than perhaps it would have been because of electronic monitoring within Shine we have been referred to as some really challenging women who have worked with various services and have seen to have failed because they end up back in prison again or they don't comply or they're just too difficult to work with and within Shine we work with several women that have been labelled as too difficult to work with and the important thing for those women is that we encourage the relevant agencies to sit down and plan what services can be provided to that woman lots of women we work with have mental health issues as well as addiction issues have suffered years and years of trauma from children right through into adulthood so just to expect them to work with somebody is unrealistic so it's really important that people plan what that's going to look like now the woman that you have described that's what I would, if she was being referred to Shine that's what I would be suggesting that we need to look and see what best is going to work within this individual to try and support her in the community as well as recognise the issues that she's presenting in the community and that takes time it takes time and patience but where it's not going to happen is in prison that change is not going to be affected in prison so working with people needs to be in the community and it needs to be with the right people but it's also about it's not going to happen overnight it's almost an inevitable problem if you return a person back to where they were before if the offending behaviour is almost their job it's almost their activity it's what they do it will keep happening unless there is something different I just want to give you a quick example we've got a group running in our Inverness service of women who were referred through from the NHS women who have are habitual offenders absolutely habitual and it's been going off for a long part of their life and they began to start working volunteering at a local horse sanctuary and they'd go there early in the morning and they'd come back late at night too tired to do anything other than go home and have a bath and have a sleep but the difference in the attitude of these women is astonishing they are contributing they're feeling the sense of teamwork they're feeling satisfied yes, if a person is bored if they're still doing the same old things you'll just get the same old behaviour you've got to change that so whatever you do it has to be more than just an administrative thing it has to be more than just are you monitoring, do you know where they are it has to be something's got to change in that person's life and the only way you're going to do that really is investing in it Kirsten Abercrombie just what you were saying there about repeatedly reaching their bail conditions I would ask what work is being done whilst they're on bail and if it's not working we need to change your approach on how it is working or do we want to send people to prison that are a danger or do we want to send people to prison because they're a nuisance it seems that there are ways that we can work work round it in that, like we're saying not just to monitor where somebody is and they're turning up on time I think, like we were saying before the issues that these women or men are dealing with the nature of their conditions with drug and alcohol addictions is that they are relapsing conditions so they will fail time and time again but we have to certainly in the third sector we're very good at persistence and giving somebody that extra chance in order that they can achieve long-term outcomes I'm grateful Thank you We had evidence earlier in the inquiry from Social Work Scotland we were again very positive about the potential benefits of electronic monitoring with all the caveats that you've rightly reinforced but they raised a potential issue around the risk of what they called up-tariffing I read from there following the original pilots we've had bail supervision for many years and its use has grown but the use of remand has grown exponentially alongside that our concern is about more punitive and restrictive measures being added to bail supervision with no corresponding reduction in the use of remand by the nodding of heads I detect a degree of agreement with that how would we avoid that as we see electronic monitoring taking forward I think it's something that we I was alluding to earlier the fact that we need to provide an assessment my view would be that before a sheriff would decide on electronic monitoring then we should be providing the sheriff with information that would allow the sheriff to make that decision and that's being cognisant of the fact that we don't want to up-tariff people I mentioned earlier on about bail supervision and bail supervision ran for 13 years in Ayrshire and one of the things that I was determined to do was to make sure that women were going to be a target for bail supervision because they weren't getting it in Ayrshire in the two courts and I really worked hard with the sheriff to encourage them to consider women for bail supervision and they did, it was fantastic the increase and then when I checked the remands they were going up as well so it was pulling that back and saying how do we focus to ensure that it's only the right women that receive bail supervision increasing women who were on remands so we did do that bit of work much more thoroughly and it was ensuring that the sheriff were giving the right information about what the alternatives were to bail supervision because the sheriff can consider bail first of all so jumping from nothing to bail supervision was pretty risky because the next step is obviously prison equally with electronic monitoring it's making sure that we start at a tariff that's low enough our fear is with sheriffs that if we don't give them the options that they will jump to that higher tariff because it's seen as something that could be well this potentially will stop them from offending but if they don't have the information that's relevant to them then I think it's high risk for the people concerned and that's why they need the information in the sense of a reflection of a concern not to appear to be going down this route as a soft option that has to be robust and therefore we're going to make it robust by layering on additional components to it and the sheriff's been well content with that idea and think that that's a really positive idea but do we really need it at the stage that the woman really needs to have that level or man should we not be starting at a lower level and that's I think we have a responsibility to support the sheriff's to help them to consider these lower options first of all before we jump I thank all the panels very much for attending and for the offer of the additional information that you said you could provide on data that would be very much appreciated and obviously your contributions and comments will will influence our report and thank you so much for attending today I now suspend briefly to allow witnesses to leave and to have a five minute comfort break consideration of three public petitions and I welcome Christine Grahame for this item on petition 1370 and how we'll deal with it we'll have comments from the committee and then Christine I'll bring you in to comment and we can take it from there I refer members to paper three which is note by the clerk and the committee is asked to consider and agree what action if any it wishes to take in relation to each of the petitions possible outcomes are outlined in paragraph five of paper three and I remind members that if they wish to keep a petition open they should indicate how they would like the committee to take it forward and if they wish to close a petition they should give reasons we'll consider each of the petitions in order starting with petition PE1370 independent enquiry into the McGrackie conviction this petition is discussed on page two of the clerk's paper and a submission was received from the petitioners which was circulated separately to members and published on the committee's website on Monday before we commence formal consideration of this petition can I just say that one of the petitions very sadly Robert Forrester died last week and the committee would wish to express our condolences to the family I now invite comments from members on this petition anyone want to start John Finnie you'll be familiar with the layout on the parliamentary website of how we explain what's happening about petitions in this particular petition lodged on 1 November 2010 and at that time it has an accompanying spice briefing paper there after a very lengthy list of interventions including some of the more recent ones on April there's a record about consideration of appointing an independent prosecutor the committee's written at various points we've written to the Lord Advocate seeking clarification on the status of the independent council working with Police Scotland we've spoken about Operation Sandwood and sort updates on that but I'm thinking that we keep this petition open to me it's not about personalities it's entirely about the process and this committee explaining itself because there's none of us beyond the explanation I include some of the people mentioning the petition and most certainly the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service and we know that this has got very many unique features this whole affair it saw a trial on a Dutch airbase we have the justice system's response to various accusations made by the Justice for McGregor committee were woeful initially but have since been picked up and I understand and enjoy the confidence of the Justice for McGregor committee and they are being taken seriously that's four years into that and we have a situation where there has been an independent QC appointed to support the police in relation to this but then what because ultimately this report has to go to Crown Office and as you'll know I've spoken on previous occasions about the process whereby the citizen concerned about the conduct of the prosecuting authorities has confidence that they understand the system now it may be me and I stand to be correct of any of the members around the table but I certainly don't believe where they are yet to understand where that process sits so I would like to say present arrangements are clearly going along but what preceded them was clearly wasn't considered robust enough or we wouldn't be where we are and I would like us to be in a position to produce some more detailed response at some point in the future to explain ourselves indeed and I think a first step to that would be to ask for an update of the brief I understand it's a very standard procedure that SPICE would produce a very short briefing in respect of the proposal we've moved beyond the proposal but we can't ignore the vehicle that's taken us to where we are where we have had these interests in the different factors concerning the avenues that we've addressed so I'm very keen that we keep it open and we get an updated brief to incorporate all the information and that in turn will be posted on the website and would be further explanation to citizens who maintain a very keen interest in this matter are there other comments from members Would it be helpful if I read the petition again to make quite sure what we have in front of us today is calling on the Scottish Government to urge the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Campfanzais conviction of Ali Bast Ali Mohammed Ali McGarackie for the bombing of the Padman flight 103 in December 1988 That's the petition in front of us today Liam Kerr Just briefly on that point to my mind and the committee will appreciate I'm coming in I've only been here two years so I'm not quite sure how these things happen but I'm looking at it I'm looking at a 2010 petition which is lodged on a very narrow remit you've just read out what that petition calls on us or the Scottish Parliament to do I was listening to John Finnie and I don't necessarily disagree with anything you said, John but I think by your own mission we've moved beyond that very narrow scope that was lodged seven or eight years ago it's almost a kind of mission creep and certainly the submissions that we looked at before today's meeting just seem to be going off on other tangents so if the narrow question being asked is what do we do with this petition my immediate response having listened to what you said, John Finnie and listening to the convener's summary is the actual petition has been almost superseded so I fairly quickly get to a point where I say not to keep it open, John it's to close it down and perhaps the petitioners want to look at something different going forward but as to the narrow question is this the right petition, do we take this forward on balance, I think I'm at a place that says no Rona, followed by Ben thank you convener I actually support John Finnie's stance on this I think it may be a narrow question encompassing so much that I think a briefing now to say where we are just to pull everything together would be the way forward that we can then make a decision on what way to go things have moved some sense has been overtaken by events but I think something to say where we are now for the committee because a lot of us are new members would be helpful so I support John's proposal convener, likewise I absolutely support keeping this petition open I think we need to obtain the briefing as John Finnie has suggested in order to appraise ourselves of where the scenario is as things stand and also consideration around operation sandwood and to consider what steps the committee might want to take thereafter so as things stand I'm absolutely in the position that this petition should open Can I refer members to the submission that we have received from the petitioners it's our sincere belief that such political invention is long overdue it's not good enough for the committee to decide to defer these matters until the Crown Office has considered operation sandwood report or the SCCRC has made a decision on the Murrachai submission for a further appeal whether they do that or not so I think the petitioners are telling us that to defer this for sandwood as you're suggesting Ben is not some way forward well that's one of the reasons but you're also suggesting is that correct that you want the spice brief that John has suggested I said consideration around sandwood but I was supporting John Finnie's proposition to attain a briefing and I think I would also point out that my reading of the submission is that the petitioners are not asking for the petition to be closed Can I be clear exactly what you want this spice brief to to include given the previous cabinet secretary's response was that any conclusion reached by an inquiry would not have any effect on either upholding or overturning the conviction as it is appropriately a court of law that has that power so what are we seeking to achieve here well I go back to my earlier point convener on the obligations placed on this committee now ultimately I think our decision on what to do with this petition should be informed by all the information we have here as has been said we have some new member on the committee there is an extensive list there and some of the points that is on this but there is the wider position of explaining to the people that I am answerable to what happens in the circumstances that this committee have come forward with serious allegations and these relate to issues like perjury and corrupt practices on the part of the Crown how we deal with this going forward because everything about this particular case is exceptional and we are going to have a new policy because if the decision were taken to be in it these issues don't go away my obligation is to still try and explain to people and this is the committee where we do it because this is the justice committee and the justice committee must have interest in the prosecution of crime and the citizens right of redress when they feel something's gone wrong the sandwood the sandwood report is that impinging on what you are now asking the committee to look at? No, no, I think the update would include the circumstances in which it starts off, it's set up as you know there was obstruction under the previous system and it was only Police Scotland pulled the thing together and it gets its leadership at that point so that's a factor we need to understand what would happen in these circumstances again there's the role that the prosecution played in that because you'll recall that and I purposely throughout all my interventions on personalities or many of the issues that we have in front of us here that the public can read on the website to me it's not about personalities we all have to answer to ourselves for senior politicians this committee it is about understanding process Daniel then Liam McArthur so just briefly I think I'd broadly reflect and agree with the comments that have been made by John Finnie Benwick person and Rona Mackay but I would just acknowledge what Keir has said and I note that this is a petition that's of long standing I note that it's a petition which through its course has looked at associated issues but I think that actually lends weight to John Finnie's proposal I think for those reasons if we're considering what happens next I think we need to look at that well and truly in the round and therefore a brief from Spice where we are right now and I think pulling together the issues but I think also critically I think setting out what precisely what our options are and those implications are in terms of parliamentary process I think is quite key as well and I think I would just in terms of making a decision about this would want to understand the interactions between whatever steps we take and other on-going processes because while I understand the petitioners who would like us to take steps and not wait for the other processes to conclude I would just want to understand what the potential consequences and interactions might be before we make any particular decision Liam McArthur then George I think I blamed what John has said and what Daniels just added would capture my view this petition has been before the committee a number of times over this session on each occasion we have agreed to defer it pending the outcome of operation sandwood I think the strange were we to deviate from that necessarily at this stage but I think the point Daniels made about having some clarity over the interaction between what we are doing and and other processes would be helpful I think it would also be helpful to clarify the position in relation to operation sandwood and what information is going to be made available to this committee it's all very well to be seen to be kicking the can down the road if there is some prospect of information being shared with us in due course if that is not the case I think that is a concern for the committee to pursue and George I'm supporting John as well on what he's asked for because A, I think he makes a valid point in the fact that there has been quite a turn around the committee, myself being a perfect example of it, Mr Finnie's been here since 2010 and before that as well so he's sat through the whole process and I think I need that information before I go any further myself as well but also I also take on point of view that John Finnie brought up was the fact that this has been yes things have moved on but this petition has been the vehicle of travel you know, I think that that was an important point that John brought up was the fact that this has been the thing that's kept pushing the issue forward and I think we need to get the information and I would like to keep it open for that reason so that we can make a more informed decision further down the line Do any other members full tune? I've not got a lot to add from what George Adam said there, I would be content to leave it open and get the space briefing I think that since I've been on this committee it's come up regularly and I know that the petitioners come in beautifully every time to hear what's been said so it's obviously a matter of great importance to people and I would feel more comfortable keeping it on the agenda and getting more information Any other members, Maurice? I would agree with that, I agree to understand what John's coming from and I think that he's brought a new member from it I did touch on it slightly, the petitioners committee was on that but I would be much more comfortable to hear what the SPICE report is saying and at this stage keep it open If there are no committee members can I invite Christine Grahame to make her comments? Thank you very much I must declare an interest as a longstanding member of the Justice for McGregor campaign that I make it plain I speak for myself I'm pleased to hear what members say about updating SPICE I looked it in 2012 was the last timeline, I may have that wrong I'd say to Liam Kerr and I do agree that it's over the time this petition has moved on but many petitions lodged by the public do that There's a certain elasticity they're not court pleadings for which you have to be held so responsible I want to just say if I may have a few things for members that are new and younger members here it's 30 years come December since the lock would be atrocity and as the years pass in my view the security of the conviction of Abdul Basit Al-Maghrahi frays even more at the edges Indeed if I go so far to say I'm looking at some members here I think there were children perhaps teenagers when this atrocity occurred though I recall it clearly As you know perhaps this is a bit of a SPICE update on the second appeal to secure compassionate release Abandoned was not a prerequisite for that prisoner of transfer was but it was a belt and braces for him because he wanted to go home so The grounds of the second SCCRC appeal have never ever been tested in court Currently a third application by his family is with the SCCRC that's Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and I wrote to them in September last year and asked them if it could not consider this third application until it has a conclusion from Operation Sandwood and that report is lodged and I'm happy to provide the committee with that letter I'll just quote a little bit and I don't think it distorts what is said quotes it is certainly conceivable this is in reference to Operation Sandwood it is certainly conceivable that the board may consider that it requires a copy of the report prior to making any decision on referral factors at this stage to assess the probability of that outcome and yesterday can I also say that delays in Sandwood the police enquired into possible criminality in this case can I remind this committee that it was launched in February 2014 four years ago and the justice committee in March 2016 was told by deputy chief council Ian Livingstone it was quotes in its final stage yesterday I was advised by your clerks that Police Scotland one year on by telephone yet again stated operation Sandwood was in its final stage now I appreciate their complexities as does JFM in this particular enquiry and that may have caused the delay but can I ask the committee to suggest the committee to formally ask Police Scotland to provide detail of the number of officer hours being spent on Sandwood since you were last told that it was in its final stage that's 2016 and for an end date now I have to say put this on the record it's not a criticism of Police Scotland because officer man hours will have to be taken from somewhere else to deal with operation Sandwood but I do think you can put pressure to get this information in the way others can't and could I also ask the committee to consider writing to the SCCRC to ask if it's proceeded to stage 2 it's done stage 1 of its process and if not, why not and in particular if the operation and the report of operation Sandwood and then it's got to be referred there after the Crown Office if that's delaying matters you see I really appreciate what I do others and members of this committee that this committee has kept this petition open can keep the pressure up on this decades old matter because there are people now who aren't dying, Robert Forrester's one but there are victims families who are dying without knowing the truth about whatever it turns out to be and you're not a court of appeal I understand that but what you are able to do is to keep pressure up on agencies to ensure one way or the other either there's a ferro from the SCRC and it then goes to appeal and we can at last draw a line under something that's approaching 30 years on from that atrocity so that's my plea to the committee more than continuing the petition to put your foot down on the accelerator and to say to these agencies this committee deserves to be told we've been told quite often this operation Sandwood is in its final stages it appears to be a blockage to the further referral to the SCRC we need to know more we need to have more information so that this can be brought to a conclusion and that would be my plea to the committee thank you again I think there's without doubt a real frustration at the length of time that the operation Sandwood has taken so if the committee's agreed we will write and seek further information and I think you also requested Christine that we look at that we approach SCRC and see where they are if they're now at stage 2 which I think we're happy to do is it the committee's then agreed position that we get briefing from SPICE which will take in all the things that Christine said all the points that we've mentioned around the table today and in that case that we keep the petition open and consider the the SPICE brief and determine thereafter how we move forward agreed thank you the copies of my letters to the SCRC have seen the response if you're right thank you very much moving on petition number 2 is petition 1511 in Vanessa fire control room this petition is discussed on page 3 of the clerks paper and do members have any views Liam McArthur I think it would be helpful given how often we've now returned to this petition just to clarify the detail of the response in relation to the FOI request which seems to be the focus of this latest response from the petitioners I think what has changed since last time we considered this is our undertaking as part of our work programme to undertake post-legislative scrutiny into the some of the issues around this to capture some of that in our on-going work but certainly I would find it helpful to get further information probably from clerks rather than anybody else around what has been provided under those FOI requests because as I say that seems to be the principal focus of this latest correspondence from the petitioner any other views Liam just a very small point of sympathy with what Liam McArthur just said it just seems to me that a lot of what the petitioners want us to do appears to be about to be picked up anyway and a lot of the issues that the petitioners seem to be want reviewed, addressed, looked at are historic anyway I mean we are where we are and the review that Liam McArthur is talking about I think will pick up on it so I question the value of keeping it open any other I agree with Liam and the two Liam's on that basis that we think gone as far as we can far greater no further answers if there's FOI issues to be looked at perhaps there's a complaint to the freedom of information officer but we would close this petition but there may be issues that were raised in the course of it, the general principle of control rooms that may well be covered in work undertaken under our future work programme John Thank you convener I think it is appropriate that the post-legisl of scrutiny provides an opportunity to look at aspects of this I just wonder would that be shared with the petitioner that that's doing that Are we content to move forward on that basis The third and last petition that we're just looking at this morning is the petition on private criminal prosecutions in Scotland and this is discussed on page 3 of the clerks paper there were a lot of submissions for this, do members have any comments? Rona Thank you, I should probably declare an interest in that this petitioner is a constituent of mine I think we received a lot of submissions which made for very interesting reading it's a big issue it's a very serious and important issue I would suggest that we we should ask the Scottish Government for their opinion I don't think that's been asked for yet and I would also like to see the petitioner and some of the people who responded maybe come and give verbal evidence as a start as a way forward Are there other views Liam Kerr? I think that Rona Mackay makes a good point on that one thing that did majorly concern me one of the submissions seems to suggest that the proposal would be outside legislative competence and I'd probably want to understand whether that's the case or not Peter, can you see Is it the committee's view then we keep it open, we seek legal advice on this point and in the meantime send these submissions to the Scottish Government to get a response and then we can see more clearly where we go after that If that's the case, that's a way forward and the committee agrees to keep it open pending these actions We now move into private session that concludes the public park of today's meeting and our next meeting will be after these to recess We now move into private session and I don't think we need to suspend briefly because there are no witnesses so we can move right on